A/N: All mistakes are mine, because someone's too busy having a life to help. We're about halfway through, guys! Theoretically. Keep pushing!
Chapter 12
two days since last feed
All of you drove and drove until you could put that hell behind you, the billowing smoke from the remnants of their compound a marker that faded into the distance mile after mile. Still, you took no chances, roaring down the country roads with little idea where you're going aside from away. The jostling makes it impossible to do anything productive, and every bounce jars your injured arm to the point where you'd rather just detach it from your shoulder. With the monster retreated, every wound you've suffered comes into acute clarity, and Tina sees the strain in your face long before she can do anything about it.
Shadow, flanking your other side, hasn't stopped watching you since you've gotten in the car. The SUV sits seven comfortably, but most were hesitant to sit in an enclosed space with you, your skin smearing blood over the upholstery and making it stink of death; Tina and Mike rolled their eyes first and took their normal spots, which inevitably meant Artie was dragged along for the ride. Kurt, not wanting to suffer through Puck crammed into one side and Finn on the other crawled into the back, pressing himself against the window, leaving Artie beside him and Tina in the front to be Mike's second set of eyes. Shadow had sighed pussies under her breath and taken up post beside you, your fingers so close to touching her heat radiated through you like the aftermath of a bomb. It burns.
You flinch as you try and stretch your ankles, the bruise from the tripwire flexing as you do. You've been up since dawn, trundling along forgotten roads, and everything is starting to cramp. Shadow licks her lips, debating internally, before she reaches for the radio cord.
"Fabray," she calls through the line, "it's way past lunch and I'm bored as fuck. We should stop for a bit."
"Also," Tina chimes in before she stops the transmission, "we need to stop for fuel soon. It's running low."
A moment of static before Quinn's voice comes through, as weary as you feel.
"Maps say there should be a little town about two hours away. Abandoned, probably, but it would be good for scavenging. Can you hold out?"
Shadow looks for your subtle nod, sighing when she finds it.
"I guess. I hate sleeping in these things."
"Stop bitching. We'll be there soon."
Turns out soon is three hours due to Rachel's poor map-reading, and the sun is low in the horizon by the time you roll outside, battered and bruised. You can't even stretch your shoulder and groan, popping your back into place. Blood has dried all over you, crackling when you flex your hands, but the back of you is still warm and damp and leaves the lingering scent of death warmed over. An imprint of your body, a bloodstained halo, has forever been imprinted into the upholstery where you sit. It's impossible not to notice how people hang their heads outside of the car when they can.
"God, that stinks," Puck grunts, glancing at you before turning away.
"You smell like roadkill and a sumo wrestler," you deadpan, face unchanging even as the rest of the group snickers.
"The fuck did you just say?"
"I might smell gross, but you smell worse."
Puck sniffs discreetly at his arm and frowns. "I smell fine."
"We all smell pretty gross," Finn agrees, "but you take the cake. Or the cupcake, or whatever. I was about to stuff deodorant up my nose."
"As thrilling as hearing Brittany insult you is, Puck, we need to scout around," Quinn interrupts. "No more surprises."
You hear him grumble I don't smell as he picks up the shotgun you've found, disappearing into the first of the few ramshackle buildings that dot the single dirt road. The sun doesn't feel as harsh on your own skin, but the way Mercedes fans at her brow says otherwise. Is it July yet? August? The days are an endless loop of different scenery that manage to all look the same.
"The foliage is really green here," Tina observes, peering into the edges of the forest. "There's probably a river."
"Thank god," Kurt sighs. "I can't believe that going a week between baths is acceptable now. Two in a week is positively beautiful."
"Sorry you can't keep up your moisturizing routine," Shadow snaps. "Maybe try Britt's idea here, it seems to do wonders."
"We'd have to find someone else to bleed," you muse. "I ran out."
"That's quite alright, Brittany... I'm not Elizabeth Bathory."
"Is that a place?"
"Not quite."
"If that stuff really attracted the zoms, you should go wash it off," Tina reasons. "There should be water over that way. Santana, go with her."
"She's a big girl, she can wash herself."
"The buddy system doesn't stop just because you suddenly get shy. These clothes should be relatively fresh." She heaps some into Shadow's dumbfounded arms, giving her a saccharine sweet smile. "Don't be long."
Tina winks as she passes by, and you grin despite yourself.
The river isn't a river at all, but a lake; the glimmering surface might be freezing but it's no less clean, and the brown mud at the bottom is soft on your battered soles. You unbutton your ruined pants, smirking a little as Shadow awkwardly clears her throat before you wade into the lake. With the water's help you peel your sodden clothes from yourself, thrashing in the shadows, dry blood wetting and flaking off like paint left too long in the sun. It wraps around your bones, and the pain in your flesh dulls ever so slightly. As you scrub the bar of soap over your stained skin, the water turns a frothy red.
Shadow sits at the end of the dock beside you, pretending that she's looking out onto the horizon without glancing at you every few seconds. Your back turned to her, you let her watch.
"So, uh," she breaks the silence, absently splashing water with her fingers. "What you did at the place. Have you done that before?"
"I did a lot of things at the place," you reply, scrubbing your face so hard it gets into your eyes and you have to dunk your face into the lake to get rid of the burn.
"The... the biting. You didn't hesitate."
You pause, soap stilling on your forearm. "I was trapped."
"I know. I'm just asking."
You meet her eyes, curious and calm. Your teeth tingle.
(You need to learn to trust eventually.)
"Once," you reveal finally, starting to scrub again. No matter how hard you try, it doesn't remove the thought of his hands from your skin. "I couldn't get away."
"When was it?"
"A few weeks ago? I don't remember. I lose track of time in the car. I don't even know how long we've been away from New York."
Silence reigns for a few minutes and you gently pass the bar of soap against your bullet wound, hissing as it irritates the sore, puffy flesh. Shadow beckons you to her and you gingerly wade through the water, your other arm wrapping around the scars that litter your chest. She dips the soap and carefully begins to rub with her fingers, wearing away the crusted trails that prick at your torn skin.
"That's the time you had those bruises on your wrists."
You stiffen but she catches you before you can pull away, prompting a flare of pain to shoot through your shoulder. She knows, thumb pressing precariously close to the hole, and with a defeated sigh you relax back into her touch even though your mouth stays sealed.
"Look, I know something went down with Sam."
She cups her hands to rinse the wound, continuing down your arm when the area is clean.
"I'm not gonna lie and say I haven't thought about it. Everyone has. Sooner or later, something's gonna give. Maybe 'Cedes will ask questions."
You chew at your lip as she reaches your forearm, pulling away as her fingers skate along the bandages that have little more than decorative value now. Still, she yields to your unspoken wish and skips to your hand and the nails still covered in blood, scrubbing each digit with the pads of her own.
"I know it's fucking impossible to tell if you're lying because you have that creepy stare going on, but sometimes people won't take what you have to say as a real answer."
("I'm not all of a person but I am a person! The things I say are real things!")
She rubs between your fingers, and her patience – so unusual of a girl who rips through the world like a whirlwind – wets your tongue.
"I bit Sam," you murmur quietly, and you feel her touch falter momentarily on your hand. "He trapped me on the counter. I kept saying no, but he didn't listen to me. He was so heavy and I couldn't move him, and his touch was wrong, a-and when he pushed his hand into my pants I didn't know what else to do. He got mad and yelled at me. That's when the zombies came."
You smile crookedly, meeting her eyes. "Does it make me a bad person that I don't regret it? I was sad that Mercedes was sad, but... he deserved it. I watched as he died and didn't try to help."
She turns you to face her, one hand firmly on your shoulder in a way that takes away the pain.
"Fuck that," Shadow commands firmly. "He might have been frustrated, but that's no excuse for the shitty thing he did. Guys that only think with their dicks get them bitten off." She licks her lips, uncomfortable, and you follow the movement. "He didn't actually, you know, um..."
Your blank stare, useful as it may be, makes her ears burn.
"He didn't, uh, go inside or anything, right?"
"Oh," you exclaim, redness blooming across your nose. "No. I bit him before that."
"Good." She clears her throat, drawing back and away. "That's, uh, that's good."
In an effort to rescue her from her own embarrassment, you subtly cup your right hand in the water before bringing it up, spraying her in the face. She blinks, stunned, gaze slowly turning to your mischievous smile.
"You didn't."
"What if I did?"
Her response comes in a double handed gush of water to your face, the soapy residue drying out your mouth. You sputter, laughing, and retaliate. Soon, the space is filled with your twin shrieks of laughter as she darts around on the dock, helplessly trying to avoid your tidal waves that rush straight at her evidently not waterproof boots.
Somehow she manages to find a discarded bowl floating in the shallows and the attacks turn, whipping prodigious amounts of water that you can't fight back against. Bombarded from all sides you flounder into the deeper water, taking a deep breath before diving into the placid depths.
Sound instantly cuts out and you kick yourself deeper, dragging yourself through the mud with your hands. In your first life you think you were a water baby, always paddling, splashing, going deeper than you ever had before. Sometimes you dream of a seaside, blue as flickering neon signs, running your phantom hands through hair tangled with salt. If you lie still enough, you still feel the sand between your toes and the whisper of the ocean lapping at the shore, begging you to play.
It's hard to mourn for a life you don't remember, but sometimes the ache of things missing and unknown leaves just as big a hole as those whose memories you can cherish.
(Thoughts bloom out of nowhere sometimes, surprising you with their arrival. Is that what before-Brittany used to think, before her brain got sick?)
If you can just hold out until you're safe, you think... you want to remember. It's hard to live with half of you trapped underwater.
You open your eyes as a hand grabs your ankle, the disturbed water buffeting your body. Lazily, you turn, eyebrows raising as Shadow swims into your vision, her hair fanning around her like a black veil. Here in the depths her gaze is the darkest you've ever seen it, black and black again, drilling into the deepest parts of you hidden in the waves. She draws you closer by the forearms and your hands cup the sharpness of her jaw, gravitating together until your toes find anchor on the firmness of her shins. Your foreheads knock together, gently, coerced by the water, and if you've ever felt such peace in a moment you don't remember it.
Something shifts in her gaze; a soft tidal wave, a slow bolt of lightning, and whatever this is that haunts you draws you so close your lips brush hers for the faintest of seconds. Before you can truly understand the spike that spears you from head to foot she inhales involuntarily, sucking lakewater into her lungs and breaking the moment like the tide crashing into the rocky shore.
You drag her to the surface and hold her upright as she coughs, her legs too short to touch ground. She curls over your shoulder and your fingers tangle in the wet swath of her hair, curling around like ropes, and you never want to let it go. You wait until she quiets, breathing heavily from where she's wrapped around you.
"Fuck," she mutters eventually, voice raspy.
"You okay?"
"Am I okay? You were down there for like eight minutes."
"Oh. Is that why you dived in?"
She pulls back to look at you, and all of a sudden you're hyper aware she's wearing nothing more than a wet wife-beater and a pair of underwear. You swallow, glad you're in a freezing lake.
"I thought you drowned or some shit."
"I can hold my breath for a long time."
A moment's silence lets her gaze fall to your mouth, but she blinks as quickly as it happens and shakes her head, looking out into the horizon. You feel her tensing again under your palms, strained as your sanity when the monster comes.
"Can you, uh, put me down?"
"Oh. Right."
You let her go and she paddles abruptly to the dock, hauling herself up and snatching her clothing as she goes. You watch her leave without a word as she mumbles something about going back to the others, disappearing into the camp without so much as a glance back. But you hear her heart hammering in her throat, a thousand trumpets to announce what she tries to hide. Her mind may try, but her body never lies.
(Just like yours.)
You lick your lips, mud sinking between your toes. Whatever was about to happen shifted something inside you, left you both unsettled and determined – rotating on a new axis entirely unlike your old. You always thought her gravity would draw you in, and with the imprint of her jaw against your palms, it won't ever let you go.
But... you run your tongue against your teeth, wetting your dry mouth. Before it happens again (and it will, you feel it in your bones that never lead you wrong) you need to do some experimenting.
It's fairly easy to get him alone.
Finn isn't the smartest of people on a good day, and though he usually clings to Rachel like a puppy who's lost its ball, there's a few times where he's blessedly alone. Maybe one of those times is when he sneaks off to bathe alone because he's self-conscious, and you end up stalking him half the way there, but you're not being that creepy. Only a little, when he looks back and you drop to your stomach in the bushes.
You decide to wait until you hear the splash of lakewater to get up again, creeping to the very edge of the trees to wait. Like a hunter who starves out his prey you sit on your haunches, observing his movements with a critical eye. He reaches for his junk at one point but must decide the water's too cold, as he grumbles in irritation and finishes rinsing off. You let out a silent sigh of relief.
(It's not that you have anything against guys, but... Finn just doesn't cut it.)
He's halfway into his first pantleg, underwear sticking to his clammy skin, when you begin your march down the beach. It takes him a few moments to notice and you wonder for perhaps the twelfth time how someone as oblivious as him survived for this long, keeping your face a mask of indifference as he starts and scrambles to hide himself.
"Don't bother," you shrug. "There isn't much to hide."
His face screws up into what Shadow calls his gassy infant expression, and for the first time you see the resemblance. "Is that an insult, or..."
"It's whatever you want it to be."
Silence passes and you watch him grow more and more uncomfortable – you suck on the fragile flesh below your bottom lip, leaving bruises that bloom bigger with each passing moment.
"Can I, like, help you with something? You know I'm crap at understanding the weird way you speak."
"I don't speak weird."
"You do sometimes. It's like another language – you start to speak English for a bit but then you forget and say confusing things again."
You ponder his surprisingly accurate description, not noticing as he shoves his other leg into his worn jeans.
"Look, now you're being creepy. Can you just, like, go? It's weirding me out."
"Sure. But I need something first."
Taking a deep breath through your nose, you bite through the inside of your mouth until blood wells underneath your tongue, coppery and sweet. With two strides forward you clamp your hands in his wet hair, jerking him down towards you until you can smash your lips together. He makes a surprised grunt against you but your arms are like deceiving vices, and the longer you hold him the less he resists. Eventually, he opens his mouth against yours, and you resist the urge to gag as the slimy heat of his tongue invades you.
He recoils as soon as he tastes your blood, but the damage has already been done. You retreat and spit into the dirt, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. Finn looks at you like the world's suddenly gone dark, stripped of all rhyme and reason, and you resist the urge to snap your fingers in front of his face.
"W-what the fuck?" he stammers, and you crouch down to rinse your mouth out with lakewater.
"Don't think too hard," you offer impassively, moving past him towards where you've made camp for the night. "It might hurt."
You reach the outskirts of the little town when he catches up to you, his bulk crashing through the foliage in great waves of broken twigs. He's like the clumsy earthquake that destroys everything in its path, as unintentional as it may be.
(So different from Shadow, precise in her annihilation, capable of turning a single point of focus to dust with the turn of her lips.)
"You don't get to run away from me!" he shouts, lowering his voice as it echoes down the road. "I'm with Rachel!"
"So?"
"So you can't do that," he stresses, shaking you by the biceps. His palm puts pressure on your bullet wound and you yelp, white-hot fire burning up the left side of your body. He releases you, but not before Mr. Schue pokes his head out from the doorway, eyes narrowed in the gloom.
"Is everything alright?" he calls, and you flex your hand that tingles still.
"Fine." You regain composure, looking Finn in the eye with that stare you know everyone hates so much. "Just forget about it. You sound crazy right now."
"I sound crazy? You're the one that kissed me!"
"But who will believe you?" you whisper with a hint of a smile, turning on your heel and disappearing into the fortified church.
You can almost feel his jaw slacken as he watches you go, and it fills you with a deep sense of victory. Now, you wait.
Tina takes you aside almost immediately after you walk in, scolding you for staying away so long. You mumble something about still having blood under your nails but you're starting to understand that you don't need a reason with her, just an apology and a willingness to listen. It's nice, to not have to spin lukewarm lies in an effort to feel normal.
"We need to dress that wound," she states as she hustles you to sit down on one of the four pews, rummaging in your new supply boxes for bandages. "The sooner we do it, the better it'll heal."
"It feels fine," you start to say, but choke on your words as she pointedly presses on it. It's not hard to see the raised eyebrow, and she rolls her eyes as she twists around to find the disinfectant, hands full of bandages and cotton swabs.
"Santana," she calls, where she's busy playing a card game with Puck. "Can you get me that box?"
Shadow eyes the same box by her foot and catches your gaze for a brief moment, her mouth firming into a straight line before she looks away. "Get it yourself, Asian Fusion," she mutters, slapping down a card rather viciously into the pile. Tina sighs.
"Don't be a bitch, it's right there," comes Quinn's voice, splayed out across another pew, reading some sort of paperback novel.
"Not my problem," Shadow sing-songs, flicking her winning card in Puck's face. He grumbles, gathering the cards to reshuffle.
"Really, Santana," Rachel huffs primly, striding over to hand Tina the bottle. "You were almost pleasant for a few days."
"Sorry to say pleasant isn't my M.O., dwarf. Back to our scheduled programming."
"Does that mean I get a scheduled blowjob?" Puck asks a bit too eagerly for it to be joking, and you see a flicker of hesitation on her face as she struggles not to look at you. Your heart twists dully in your throat, a creeping cancer.
"If you get Finn to do it, maybe," she mutters eventually, and you breathe out a hushed sigh of relief. Tina turns back to you, her hands careful on your bruised and sore flesh.
Her rhythmic cleaning is the only thing you register for a few moments, and despite the stinging pain it's soothing.
"Looks like it got you good, huh?" she inspects, careful to swab the channel that exposes the inside of you. "I'm out of thread for stitches and we can't leave it open like this. I'm gonna have to cauterize it."
"Like branding a horse," you murmur, and her nose crinkles a little.
"I guess."
The ceiling of the church you've taken shelter in has somehow been blown apart, gaping hole giving birth to the skies that boast millions of constellations, and smoke that spirals from your little campfire heats your weary bones. Tina places the blade of her knife into the fire, waiting until it blooms a cherry-red.
"This is gonna suck."
"It always sucks."
When it's ready she grasps the handle, and you feel the heat streaming onto your skin long before you feel the pain. Mike puts the leather of his belt between your teeth and Puck mutters something filthy, but you're aware of the entire camp not-so-subtly watching your next move.
"Deep breath, Britt," she murmurs, but she's already pressing the metal to your skin.
Pain flares up your jaw and through your eye socket and down into your ribs; your nails bite into the wood of the pews and your heels dig into the worn boards in an effort not to move. Tina's smart and pulls it away in quick bursts, checking for damage, but you still have to clamp your eyes shut to stop seeing stars.
"I think we're good," she affirms after an eternity. Mike dabs the sweat from your brow. "I don't know how you didn't scream. You're a trooper."
"I was screaming in my head."
"That's... disturbing."
She applies the antiseptic cream to the inside, mumbling apologies as you flinch.
"You got this pretty clean on your own."
"Shadow helped."
Tina glances over to her, face drawn into a brooding thunderstorm.
"She doesn't look very helpful right now."
"She thought I was drowning and then almost drowned herself instead. I guess she's mad."
There's a shuffle in front of you, and you barely have time to register Mercedes turning her head away from your conversation before Tina laughs lowly, beginning to wind the bandage around your bicep.
"Really? She's the best swimmer in the group. I think she was a lifeguard back in Lima."
Your eyes stay on Mercedes, who pretends to look through the Bible on the pew, and her heart pounds a nervous rhythm in her throat sets you on edge. You narrow your gaze, barely reacting as Tina secures the bandage nice and tight.
"Surprise makes people do funny things."
Tina's hands still on your bicep, shifting her eyes between the two of you, before tugging you up from your seat. "I want to go over a few things from camp with you," she declares loudly, not so subtly dragging you to the other side of the open room. Once out of distance the two of you crouch over the supplies you've brought in, shuffling around in the crates. You accept a handful of beef jerky, trying so hard not to think about what the taste resembles.
"What was that about?" she asks, shifting through a pile of papers. "I've never seen you give someone such a strong side-eye."
"But I was looking right at her," you frown, used to it when she waves it away.
"You know what I mean."
Even though you really don't, you just shrug it off.
"Mercedes has been watching me. It's weird."
"Watching you how?"
"Just... watching me. She talks to Puck a lot. She tries to talk to Shadow and usually she tells her to go away, but after the drowning thing they talked a little."
"Britt... did something happen between you and Santana?"
You look at Shadow, aware of Mercedes watching you watch her. It's unnerving.
"I don't know," you reply honestly. "Sometimes she starts to like me but then she stops."
Tina squeezes your hand, offering an apologetic smile.
"It's hard to understand her, but she's not all bad. I think you know that more than anyone else except Quinn. Just give it time."
You look at your supplies, nothing added from the raid that procured only dust.
"But how much time do we have?"
For once, she doesn't have an answer.
It doesn't take long for tensions to start to mount.
Shadow's migrated back to the other vehicle, silently refusing to interact with you if she can possibly help it, and Mercedes has taken her place. You don't know why it makes you nervous, but her eyes that roam constantly send your skin crawling. She used to have good hands, but now you're not so sure.
Artie talks with Rachel through the radio, trying to plot out your next course. You aren't even on any map that they have anymore, and it means driving aimlessly through the country side, always watching the fuel meter tick lower and lower. You have a surprising amount of gas – enough for a week at least, maybe two, but food is another matter entirely. They eat so much, and even without you taking more than a few bites a day the crates are quickly running empty. Quinn's observation that all the guns in the world won't stop people from starving leaves a sour taste in your mouth.
You aren't starving yet, but you feel the clarity that's gripped you for a few days starting to leave. It's been... four days? Three? Five? Days and nights run together, but you know your limits now. Your dreams, however sparse, are filled with blood and hunting and screaming.
(The monster is still sleeping, but you hear its chains rattle inside your head.)
"There's a town that looks relatively populous up ahead," comes Rachel's voice after passing a green marker sign. "I didn't read the name, but they would have maps. We need to plan our trajectory soon, not just drive without direction."
"You're the one who started us on this goose hunt," Artie replies, flipping through even more scientific jargon. "I miss Google Maps."
"We should try and fill up the gas tanks," Puck steals the radio away from Rachel. "I don't wanna run out in the middle of Bumfuck, Canada."
"There aren't gonna be working gas stations," Artie warns, but you hear Puck scoff down the line.
"Siphoning, duh."
They park the vehicles a little ways before the start of the town, hopping out and taking the cans with them as they go. Larger places always put the group on edge, and Puck's grip is strangling on his shotgun as you unwittingly take the lead, Tina and Mike protectively flanking your either side. You're not sure why they stick so close but enjoy it anyway – it lessens the ache of Shadow's departure.
"There's a few in that bush over there," you murmur, and Tina picks up a rock to chuck it in the offending area. A few groans float out and the group makes short work before they can alert the others that undoubtedly lurk in the thick trees.
"It's like having our own watchdog," Rachel remarks, and you hear the muffled ow as Quinn smacks her on the arm.
A pileup blocks the center of the main road, and Rachel jots it down on a scavenged notepad that you'll have to go around a few side-streets. It's picturesque, almost: country life with a local grocer and small church, mom and pop convenience stores and strange, uniquely built houses. If not for the blood and bodies littering the dusty roads, it might even be a nice place to visit.
Puck approaches a large bus and peeks inside, prodding at the dead bodies. They all look vaguely uncomfortable, and you remember the story of Puck's sister ripping in half with the wet crack of her spine the last they ever hear from her.
"Seems legit," he eventually approves, shuffling in his bag until he comes up with a plastic tube a bit longer than your arm. He sticks one end into the bus's gas tank, his lips curling up into a smirk. "Time to be useful, Britt."
"Dude, why don't you do it?"
"Because if I die from gasoline poisoning, we actually lose a useful member. Get over your boner for Blondie, Mike."
You hesitantly take the tube from him, eyeing the can it's supposed to lead into.
"Suck until it starts flowing. Gravity will do the rest. I'm sure you've given a blowjob or two before."
You inhale, suction forcing the liquid up from the tank into the tube.
"You're a little obsessed," Quinn observes, raising a pristine eyebrow. "You don't have to be ashamed of your fetishes, Puck."
He goes red-faced, and you don't notice his hand pointedly leaving the tube to crimp the flow until you have a mouthful of gasoline and you throw it to the ground, scrambling back as you cough it back up. It burns your nose and throat and causes your stomach to twist in on itself in a violent display of anarchy, crawling around the back of the bus to retch. Tina rushes to hold your hair even though nothing but acid and the foul-smelling gas comes out. The fumes burn your eyes, and through it all you taste a faint tang of blood.
Distantly you can hear Quinn scolding him with as much venom as you've ever heard from someone so collected – Rachel rushes to press a water bottle into your hands but drinking anything hurts, so you wave her away, wiping your tingling lips with the back of your sleeve.
The only thing you notice is Shadow's mouth pulled into a straight line, jaw tight and firm as she looks away.
Swallowing, you paw at the crowbar in your belt loop for a moment before staggering to your feet, lurching forward and swinging around the side of the bus. You barely register the thump of metal cleaving bone, but the rest of the group notices when a rotting body tumbles to the ground and you swiftly pull your weapon out of its skull.
"That's what I'm fuckin' talkin' about!" Puck hisses. "How the hell did she even know it was there? No one else did!"
"It doesn't matter how she knew, just that she saved our asses," Tina scowls back. "Again."
"Besides, do you see how little she eats?" Artie adds. "It's not like she's really hurting our food supplies."
"Don't go callin' people out when you don't do shit yourself, Specs." Puck grunts, but Quinn rolls her eyes so hard you swear you'd see it from space.
"More muscles doesn't mean more useful, dumbass," she exclaims, voice laden with exasperation. "Artie can actually do something with this junk tech scattered around. Get over yourself, Puck."
His eyes, dark as lakes flushed deep with oil, remain suspicious. Your skin crawls in the same way it did before Sam backed you up against the counter.
"Can we go?" you ask hoarsely, throat burning. "It's dangerous here."
The last of the gas drips into the second can, filling it halfway.
"We still have shit to do."
"Then hurry up," Quinn commands. "All this noise is asking for trouble."
Tina hauls you upright and you blink things in and out of vision, swimming through liquid sugar. The world spins and your body seems strangely out of proportion to the objects around it; someone else holds your other side and you lean, unwilling to think about how difficult it is to focus. One foot goes in front of the other in a torturous rhythm as the world spins out underneath your feet.
People are saying things all around you but Tina's voice is closest, almost in your ear, whispering in the hollow reaches of your skull.
We need to get her to lie down, she says but it's distant; you roll your head up to look at the blue, blue sky.
She can put on her big girl panties and deal, another replies, and you think it's Shadow but you aren't certain. The way Tina's muscles tighten under your grip says it is, and her scent invades you as Tina yanks her close to hiss into her ear.
I don't know what happened between you, but stop being such a bitch.
Nothing happened, Chang One, Shadow snarls, now let go before I break your yellow fingers.
Your knees shake and all of a sudden you're being picked up, cradled in Mike's strong arms. Artie appears from over his shoulder.
Hang in there, girl, he encourages even as he's passed to Finn's back to make it easier on Mike.
You close your eyes and the earth just... falls away.
You remember jostling, running, the smell of fear peppering Mike's sweat as they stumble upon a group of sick people. Every time you open your eyes it's too bright and fuzzy so you keep them clamped shut; eventually you're set down on something softer and the roar of the engine starts again, infusing your dreams with machines and great metal things falling from the sky.
Wrapped up in that little cocoon of darkness does more good than you understand; you wake suddenly in the middle of the night, throat blistering and raw. Your hands fumble for the door handle and you roll outside of the SUV, not bothering to lift yourself up off the ground for a few moments. Your lungs, tight and burned, welcome the fresh air.
Combat boots stop in front of you and a pale hand offers you a water bottle that you quickly guzzle, not stopping even as you choke a little. Quinn pats your back and crouches beside you, resting her back against the cool metal chassis.
"We were wondering when you'd wake up," she admits, resting her arms on her knees. "Tina's been worrying herself as sick as you."
"Where are we?"
"Some country road, as usual. Rachel and Artie have almost finished a route... we got chased out of the last town by zoms."
You lick your chapped lips, running the dirt between your fingers.
"You've been out two days," she reveals, reading your thoughts. "Seems like you drank more of it than we thought."
"My throat hurts."
"You've been vomiting acid for hours. I'm not surprised."
The two of you sit in companionable silence; you make fortresses in the dirt, extravagant mazes where your imaginary subjects run like mice, ever seeking the next prize. She watches you but it's different than Mercedes; curious instead of crucifying, soft instead of suspicious. You let her, pleased with the way she helps you build your kingdom.
"She sat with you, you know."
You pause, hand hovering over the princess' tower.
"She didn't even visit me in the hospital when I fell off the pyramid and broke my shoulder." Quinn smirks, drawing designs in the dirt. "She likes to pretend she's tough, but you're a lot tougher than any of us."
"It's like we went back to the beginning when she thought I was crazy," you admit, and then frown a little. "Not that I'm not anyway, but like, a different kind. A bad kind."
"Santana's one of the most stubborn people I know. You just have to be patient."
But there's a weight on your shoulders, a clock that's steadily ticking away. You don't know what will happen when it finally reaches zero, but you're sure you don't want to find out.
"You can only be patient while you still have time."
She squints at you through the dark.
"You know, Finn's right for once."
You glance at her curiously.
"Some days, you say things that make a lot of sense."
"My brain works better on different days. It'll go away soon."
"How do you know?"
"I feel it, inside me. Like a timer."
"What makes it better?"
You run your tongue over your lower lip.
"Shadow used to, but she's gone now. I can't do much about it."
Quinn's face softens, and she hesitantly squeezes your wrist. You let her, never looking up from the ground.
"She'll come back, Britt," she sighs lowly, "she always does. If it means anything, I've never seen her make friends so fast."
"Really?"
"I've known her for years, and sometimes she's still a mystery."
"She likes you," you disagree. "I see it when she smiles."
Quinn chuckles. "She better. I've saved her ass so many times I can't count it anymore."
"Tina said you were... Cheerios together? What's that?"
"Cheerleaders. Short skirts, high ponytails, flips and cartwheels and things. Anyone who says it's easy is full of it... fun is subjective."
"Did you like it?"
"I liked the power it gave me. Nobody dared to breathe if I walked down the halls." She smiles wistfully, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Santana was my second in command. Still is, really. The places change but the dynamic stays the same."
"Why isn't Mr. Schue the leader? Didn't he used to be your teacher?"
Quinn scoffs, kicking her legs out in front of her.
"Mr. Schue couldn't lead his way out of a paper bag. When this mess started he... checked out, basically. Left us to make our own decisions. Rachel and Finn used to lead Glee Club through the weight of their own egos, but they didn't understand pressure like we did. Our coach made us memorize the Art of War over the summer. She trained us like soldiers."
"Do you think she's still alive?"
"Coach Sylvester? If there's anyone that could survive something like this, it would be that woman. Even without your aversion to death I doubt she's had any problems."
You look at her from the corner of your eye, but she notices.
"Don't think people haven't noticed that you basically refuse to die," she explains. "I can probably count on both hands the times where we should have buried you but we didn't."
"Maybe I'm just lucky."
"Call it what you want, but..." she looks around, and her hazel eyes glint in the dark. "Be careful. Some of us are starting to wonder."
"Do you wonder?"
You hold her gaze for a long time, and in the steely cut of her stare you can see the wheels spinning behind it.
"Everybody wonders. But as long as you keep us alive, I don't really care."
When she gets up you let out a breath, adding another name to people you can tentatively call friends. Allies, maybe. Comrades? That sounds too dramatic.
"God knows you keep Santana in line, which is a bonus in my books. Just let her work through her teenage angst." She smirks. "Take it from someone who's known her since we were drinking out of sippy cups."
"That's a long time."
"It feels like an eternity," she agrees. "Now get some sleep."
"Yes captain," you mumble, already crawling back into the SUV.
You don't have to look behind you to know she's smiling.
As usual, problems spring up quickly.
Your throat may have healed but the rift it created remains – Tina hardly speaks to Puck and scowls in Shadow's direction at every given chance. Shadow, for her part, has made it an Olympic sport to ignore you, hanging around Mercedes who never stops watching (just like Sam). She doesn't join in when you hear Puck saying things about you, but she doesn't tell him to stop, either. Finn's tried to explain the lake situation to them but nobody believes him. You wouldn't either – he's like a refrigerator with a head. Rachel's already reprimanded him twice to stop making things up that make him sound paranoid.
You observe him carefully while he sleeps. No fever, headache, aching joints. No sores, no losing his mind to a madness hard to put into words. Whatever you are, you aren't contagious.
(It makes you feel a bit more human, if only just.)
For the fifth time in what seems like an hour you catch Shadow's gaze, sighing as she quickly looks away to talk to Puck instead.
You remember what Quinn told you, but it's trying. It seems her gravity even throws herself off-balance sometimes.
You're fiddling with your gun, attempting to clean the bloody handle, when a tin can of tuna is thrown across the room. The little space all of you occupy goes silent, looking up as one to see Puck scowling at the floor.
"The fuckin' tuna's gone bad," he snarls, wiping at his mouth. "I thought that shit was supposed to last forever?"
Artie gingerly picks it up from where it nudges against his foot.
"These are anchovies."
"Your point?"
He tentatively puts one in his mouth.
"They taste fine to me."
"You kidding? They smell like gym socks and taste worse."
"Then Artie can have them and you can have something else," Mike tries to placate, but Puck leaps to his feet.
"What something else? There's jack shit left! All we've got left is a couple boxes of fuckin' mac n' cheese, and I am tired of tuna! Pickled anything isn't a meal!"
"So you decided to throw some of the only food we have across the room?" Rachel rolls her eyes. "Last I checked, this group does not revolve around you."
"That's rich, Jewnose," he snaps back. "You just stopped being an attention whore because you can't do anything useful anymore."
"Hey, dude-"
"Even your boyfriend can lift heavy shit... what can you do? Huh? What can Quinn do besides boss us around?"
"I can put a damn hole in your head," Quinn retorts, eyes flashing dangerously. "Unlike you, I think about my choices before I make them. We're alive so far."
"Sam isn't," he sneers, his eyes falling on you. "And we know who we have to blame for that."
You vaguely hear not this again from someone, but Mike puts his body between the two of you before he lurches forward.
"Don't do something you'll regret," he says firmly, and Puck rolls his eyes.
"It seems like everyone's got a boner for the resident crazy," Puck grunts. "I don't get it. She's too skinny to be hot."
Shadow's eyes meet yours, and for the first time in days they don't look away. You pray she doesn't say anything.
"We want to foster good relationships in the group," Rachel replies, getting up and dusting herself off. "A fractured group only leads to ruin."
"Right now, this group is fuckin' hungry. Are we even going in the right direction? We're just fuckin' wastin' gas."
"Actually," Artie pipes up, "we've calculated a route. Avoiding the main roads, we should be there in a little less than two weeks."
A simultaneous groan goes up through three quarters of the group.
"We don't even have enough food left for a week."
"Then start eating less," Tina sneers. "Shouldn't be hard for you."
"Chang One, I swear to god-"
"Everybody just shut the fuck up!" Quinn snaps, the icy flint in her voice cutting through the tension like a sharpened blade. "Listen to yourselves! A few days ago we were almost all killed by some crazy survivors, and we're already bitching about each other? We'll never make it to wherever safety is if people hold a grudge."
"Easy for you to say," Puck mutters, slinking back to a corner. "You weren't the one who shot your friend in the face."
"And you weren't the one who dragged his body three miles so you could say goodbye," she responds, scowling. "Playing antagonist isn't helping anymore."
Everyone disperses to their little groups and you awkwardly roll a cracker between your fingers, the salt flaking off onto your skin. You close your eyes, following the rough cadence of Puck's voice.
-like seriously, we need to do something.
Like what, Puck? Throw a zom at her and see what happens? She saved our lives.
Did she? Who's to say Tina and Mike just aren't covering for all the weird shit she's doing?
You hear someone hold their breath in deliberation, probably Mercedes.
Don't you wanna know what happened, Mercedes? Why she got to live?
Puck, honestly, comes Kurt's voice. You need to stop digging, otherwise the wound will never heal.
It's not gonna heal until I know what went down, Twinkle Toes.
She already told us, Shadow mutters, what more is there to tell?
Don't tell me you're on the bandwagon too, Lopez. You really think she's tellin' the truth?
What would she have to gain by lying?
A delay of my bullet through her face? His voice is cold, seething with a rage that boils just underneath the surface. I think she killed him.
Puck! Mercedes hisses, and you sense them all look to you – you scrunch your eyes closed and go absolutely still, back hunching, refusing to flinch even a muscle. Eventually their gazes turn back to each other, but your ears won't stop ringing. Saying shit like that will get you beat.
By who? Tina? She can't do shit.
This is ridiculous, Kurt hisses, walking over to Rachel. I refuse to listen to conspiracy theories.
Heavy footsteps join the pack... Finn, by the sound of his body settling on the ground.
What got Kurt so pissed?
Puck's leading a witch hunt, Shadow sighs, and you hear the distinctive rasp of her nail file.
Oh! On- he lowers his tone, and you can almost hear his eyes shifting in his skull, Brittany? Something's up with her. She tried to-
Dude, we don't care if she tried to molest you. You're a marshmallow with lips.
Dick.
Look, just... keep an eye out, okay? She's started to say weird shit again.
Probably because you poisoned her with gasoline.
Tina was being a cunt, okay? I had no choice.
You had plenty of choice, Shadow retorts, never looking up. You just chose to be a grade-A asshole about it.
What, you her friend now? Gonna cozy up and pat her back and help her wash the blood out from under her nails?
Shadow's aura goes dark and angry, heavy like the waves that weighed her down.
I'm not shit, Fuckerman.
You sure? Being on her good side would help us.
Help you with what? It sounds like you're planning an assassination or something.
A heavy pause, and she takes in a sharp breath.
No fucking way.
I'm not saying that, Puck placates, but we need to figure out what's going on. I want justice for my boy Sammy. Don't you?
Samantha was an oaf who probably stepped on one, Shadow mutters. You need to let it go.
I'm in, Mercedes interrupts her, and Puck's grin lights up the corner of the room.
Sweet. Finn?
Definitely. Something's up.
Lopez?
Silence for a moment, and then-
I'm not helping you paint a target on anyone's back.
Whatever. We can watch her without your bitchy commentary.
Your eyes snap open and you suck in a deep breath, anchored by Tina and Mike's hands, twins on your opposing knees. They don't need to ask to understand the stricken expression on your face.
"It'll be okay," she tries to soothe, but you have a feeling it's nothing but down from here.